Text messages transmitted with cellular phones, i.e. SMS (Short Message Service) messages are very popular among cellular phone users. By means of an SMS message, data in text form can be transmitted from a cellular network terminal device to another. SMS messages load the network very little. Only in some festival days, the SMS centres can get congested at times. The next generation in the development of this technology is represented by the multimedia message MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). An MMS message can be used to transmit images, graphics, sound, audio samples and video samples. The most advanced cellular network terminals have the capabilities for producing images and video clips for transmission in MMS messages. The information content of the MMS messages thus requires higher data transfer capacity of the cellular network than the conventional SMS messages.
The change from SMS messages to MMS messages thus entails problems in some operating environments. One problematic usage situation/environment is an event that gathers a large number of participants. Examples of such mass events are concerts and sports competitions. If the participants of the events are using cellular network terminal devices that can create MMS messages, the MMS messages sent during the mass event can use all the transfer capacity available in the cell of the cellular network serving the mass event. This is seen by the sender of the message as poor operation of the network; the created MMS message cannot be sent or it has a long transmission delay. In particular, the transmission of video clips can completely block the cellular network used in connection with such mass events.
Another problem of the sender is the unsatisfactory quality of the image or video included in the MMS message. The sender of the message probably has to take the image or video at a long distance from the target. The quality of the image or video can therefore be unsatisfactory. Naturally, the sender of the MMS message is not happy with the situation.